? Newly diagnosed (June 11th) in Europe

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fumo

Member Since 2020
Hi,

Fumo is around 7-8 years old (adopted him when he was just under one from a rescue in california). Not sure of his breed, but always felt he had ragdoll characteristics(going limp in your arms, gray color, etc).

Needless to say he's my buddy. He started peeing excessively in his litter box (never made a mistake), so we took him to the vet. We feared it could be diabetes, and it was.

His levels at the vet were 21.67mmol/L Glucose, 662umol/L FRU. The vet immediately gave him a dose of insulin, tho unsure how many units. By that evening his levels were 18.3mmol/L

After leaving we were prescribed caninsulin, 2.5 units twice a day. We also immediately bought an at home glucose tester.

After some quick reading(this forum and others), decided to start him at 2 units since it seems much better to start with a lower dose than too high.

I'm a bit of a nerd, and have set up similar monitoring for my reef aqarium so I added logging of his measurements to the setup I was for my aquarium: http://dopey.io/fumo-stats/

We've been testing him before his morning shot, 6 hours later, and again before his evening shot.

I am curious, is there a 'normal' progression when you start dosing insulin? I had assumed you'd want to compare 24hr differences (Morning shot vs morning shot), and was hoping to see a consistent decline day to day. Is that right?


Diet wise; For most of his live he's been on orijin dry food or taste of the wild. Since moving to Europe it's been harder to find these brand, and a couple months ago we switched to a country local brand of dry food.

The day he was diagnosed we went to the pet store and found https://www.mushbarf.com/sv/produkt-kategori/katt/vaisto-sv/ which appears to be an all natural 'raw' wet food. We switched him to it that evening. He is not 100% a fan of the food, but has been finishing his bowl between servings (or very close). I have added a small amount of his dry food to entice him to start eating.


I know it's not a guarantee but i'm hoping by taking rapid actions and moving to a raw diet, with regular testing and dosing, that we'll be able to get this into remission... But perhaps i'm just in denial.
 
Hi welcome. You are actually going to want to be concerned with how low your cat goes in a cycle. caninsulin tends to peek around 4-6 hours after shoot. So you will want to get a pretest reading (no food at least two hours prior) to make sure she’s high enough to shoot, then a mid cycle test to make sure she’s not going too low.
 
That is what i'm doing.

First test a bit before 0900. First dose at 0900.
Second test at 1500
Third test a bit before 2100. Second dose at 2100.

Repeat each day. With feedings happening after the test but before the dose.

How should one interpret the results tho? Should one see a daily decrease in 'starting' (AMPS) numbers, or can/will it be a bit chaotic the first days(weeks?)
 
Hmmm, Janet is right, I think 1500 might be later than you want to test mid-cycle, at least in the beginning when you are still learning Fumo's patterns. Caninsulin starts working in the first hour or two post-shot, and sometimes peaks as early as four hours post shot. By 1500 (+6), you may already have missed all the action. I think I'd test no later than 1200.

Your graphs are awesome, by the way, but I'm having trouble interpreting the times, lol. Around here, we have a common spreadsheet template that we use-- it color codes the BG numbers to help us visual learners, but allows you to fit a lot more data into the field of vision than graphs do. Here are the instructions and the template:

FDMB SPREADSHEET INSTRUCTIONS

If you put your data into that format, and link to the spreadsheet in your signature, it will greatly help us help you. Most people here are unwilling to give advice without being able to see the data, for safety reasons.
 
fumo said:
That is what i'm doing.

First test a bit before 0900. First dose at 0900.
Second test at 1500
Third test a bit before 2100. Second dose at 2100.

Repeat each day. With feedings happening after the test but before the dose.

How should one interpret the results tho? Should one see a daily decrease in 'starting' (AMPS) numbers, or can/will it be a bit chaotic the first days(weeks?)
Click to expand...
It can take weeks or months or more for the preshot number to come down. Every cat is different. Insulin is also not a set it and forget it thing. insulin needs change.
 
WELCOME! I'm hoping you are finding out what a great place this is. I also hope you like our spread sheet. To me its easier to follow because of the colors. I hope you find the same.
I'm not an expert here just part of the "family' wishing you the best for Fumo.


Again welcome to the best darn site to help you help Fumo.
jeanne
 
Welcome!!!

yay for adopting, testing and removing the dry food!:bighug::bighug::bighug:

I have to add, not a big fan of caninsulin for cats since it was made for dogs hence the name caninsulin for canine, and not all cats do great on it since they have a higher metabolism. Just something to consider and if you don’t get the results you’re hoping for, you may want to look into a longer lasting insulin like prozync or Lantus.

welcome again!:cat:
 
Thanks, I will try to figure out a way to automatically update that spreadsheet :) The graphs I shared are generated automatically from voice when I do the test/dosing :) Much simpler than an excel sheet :D


Today(Third day since diagnosed)
He was at 373 AMPS (0930am) -- He then received 2.5 Units
+2 hours he was at 257
+4 hours he was at 184
+ 6 hours he was at 146
+8 hours he was at 220

Will test him again in one hour, before his evening dose. Not sure if i'll do the 2.5 units the vet prescribed, or lower it to 2 units. Probably only 2 units.

He has also been moved entirely to a 'raw' wet food, he was on a dry food his entire life. Website is in Swedish, but I think it be considered 'low carb'. https://www.mushbarf.com/sv/produkt/vaisto-cat-gul/

I am hoping that's the cause of the drop today, and not glucose toxicity. This is where testing before every shot and throughout is important.

He's getting 3 "meatballs" (How the food comes, makes it easy for measuring out and thawing consistent amounts) in morning, and evening. He has finished everything between each serving. Fortunately, he's never been a picky eater. Perhaps part of being a shelter kitty :)
 
fumo said:
Thanks, I will try to figure out a way to automatically update that spreadsheet :) The graphs I shared are generated automatically from voice when I do the test/dosing :) Much simpler than an excel sheet :D


Today(Third day since diagnosed)
He was at 373 AMPS (0930am) -- He then received 2.5 Units
+2 hours he was at 257
+4 hours he was at 184
+ 6 hours he was at 146
+8 hours he was at 220

Will test him again in one hour, before his evening dose. Not sure if i'll do the 2.5 units the vet prescribed, or lower it to 2 units. Probably only 2 units.

He has also been moved entirely to a 'raw' wet food, he was on a dry food his entire life. Website is in Swedish, but I think it be considered 'low carb'. https://www.mushbarf.com/sv/produkt/vaisto-cat-gul/

I am hoping that's the cause of the drop today, and not glucose toxicity. This is where testing before every shot and throughout is important.

He's getting 3 "meatballs" (How the food comes, makes it easy for measuring out and thawing consistent amounts) in morning, and evening. He has finished everything between each serving. Fortunately, he's never been a picky eater. Perhaps part of being a shelter kitty :)
Click to expand...

Wow you’re doing amazing with testing go you! :bighug:

I just want to say one thing about raw food. Minnie was on it for a few months and gained 2 pounds because I was feeding her the recommended amount from the manufacturer. Just check for the amount of calories so the same thins doesn’t happen to Fumo. If you could set up your signature, that would be helpful so we don’t have to scroll all the way to the beginning of the post, or look for the thread if you starts a new one, to see what insulin he’s on, food etc. :)
 
Thanks.. I've updated my signature and my 'homemade' stats. I think it's a bit easier to read/follow now, haven't dug into how to automatically update the excel from the data I am collecting.

Yesterday was a quite low day, but today he's back up to 20+ before his evening shot.

Is it normal for a bit of YoYo-ing when first starting insulin? We've tried very hard to be consistent in amount of food/type, dosing times, etc. Perhaps I was naive(or in denial) that i'd see a consistent results in the numbers.
 
Have continued to work on making the charts more usable to folks. Have overlayed the dosing times(and amounts) with Red circles. Also still producing both the US and non-US version of the charts :) Fumo is getting allot of attention. My partner's father is a human diabetes doctor, and has been following along on his numbers. My sister in the USA works at a vet, so she and her vet doctors are following along, and as well sharing his journey here. Fumo is having more referrals than most humans.

If you click on a dot it tells you the date/time it was done/taken.

The timeline on the chart is just from when measurement/dosings occur, so it can be a tad confusing since a blue dot next to a red dot could be different amount of times... But enforcing a consistent timeline on the bottom would make the chart get very crowded very fast, so haven't decided on a solution yet.

I do have a question though. This friday is a national holiday here in Sweden -- As an American living here, I think closest comparison is July 4th. Not in terms of what the holiday means, but in terms of how much of society closes and folks travel/gather to celebrate.

These celebrations typically start early afternoon and end very late (The sun doesn't really 'go down' this time of year so it can become 0100 or later before you know it). It's a time for celebration, games, eating herring, drinks, etc.

Today I am usually giving shots around 0900 and 2100 each day. With feeding/measurements before each. Would it be OK if I started moving these dosing times ahead 30ish minutes a day? This would let us on Friday give his first shot around noon-1pm. Then we'd be home by midnight-0100 to do the second testing/feeding/shot... Once done then will do the reverse to bring his dosing times back to around the 0900/2100 mark.

I assume this is OK, but always good for a second opinion :)
 
Ann & Scatcats said:
Hej, just want to say am an old 12 years long time Swede here. On West Coast.
Click to expand...
Hi, awesome! I'm in stockholm area.

Just curious, have you done much research around food offered here in Sweden? I had been on bozita but the day he got diagnosed switched to 'Mush' which is an all raw food -- https://www.mushbarf.com/sv/produkt-kategori/katt/vaisto-sv/

Just curious if you've seen any guides around Swedish food offerings :) Or if there is any svensk forums about this :)
 
Hi, I just searched through a generic Swedish cat forum for ordinary and disorderly Swedes and you don't want to go there, since they are completely dysfunctional.

But I searched on your Mush you buy. It's made in Finland with very high food security and a Finnish well versed and researcher vet was interviwed and you are safe with Mush if you want to keep that.
 
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